~ Basic Life Of Gerigorian

Tag Archives: Money

Here is George Gilder’s summary of Information Theory when it comes to economics. We are reminded that knowledge (information) leads to creativity that leads to economic growth. The socialistic idea of centralizing knowledge has failed and Mr. Gilder shows us why. I’m definitely putting his book Knowledge and Poweron my fall reading list!

“Summing up the new economics of information are ten key insights:

1) The economy is not chiefly an incentive system. It is an information system.
2) Information is the opposite of order or equilibrium. Capitalist economies are not equilibrium systems but dynamic domains of entrepreneurial experiment yielding practical and falsifiable knowledge.
3) Material is conserved, as physics declares. Only knowledge accumulates. All economic wealth and progress is based on the expansion of knowledge.
4) Knowledge is centrifugal, dispersed in people’s heads. Economic advance depends on a similar dispersal of the power of capital, overcoming the centripetal forces of government.
5) Creativity, the source of new knowledge, always comes as a surprise to us. If it didn’t, socialism would work. Mimicking physics, economists seek determinism and thus erroneously banish surprise.
6) Interference between the conduit and the contents of a communications system is called noise. Noise makes it impossible to differentiate the signal from the channel and thus reduces the transmission of information and the growth of knowledge.
7) To bear high entropy (surprising) creations takes a low entropy carrier (no surprises) whether the electromagnetic spectrum, guaranteed by the speed of light, or property rights and the rule of law enforced by constitutional government.
8) Money should be a low entropy carrier for creative ventures. A volatile market of gyrating currencies and grasping governments shrinks the horizons of the economy and reduces it to high frequency trading and arbitrage in a hypertrophy of finance.
9) Wall Street wants volatility for rapid trading, with the downsides protected by government. Main Street and Silicon Valley want monetary stability so they can make long term commitments with the upsides protected by law.
10) GDP growth is fraudulent when it is mostly government spending valued retrospectively at cost and thus shielded from the knowledgeable judgments of consumers oriented toward the future. Whether fueled by debt or seized by taxation, government spending in economic “stimulus” packages necessarily substitutes state power for knowledge and thus destroys information and slows economic growth.
11) Analogous to average temperature in thermodynamics, the real interest rate represents the average returns expected across an economy. Analogous to entropy, profit or loss represent the surprising or unexpected outcomes. Manipulated interest rates obfuscate the signals of real entrepreneurial opportunity and drive the economy toward meaningless trading and arbitrage.
12) Knowledge is the aim of enterprise and the source of wealth. It transcends the motivations of its own pursuit. Separate the knowledge from the power to apply it and the economy fails.”

One day a capitalist took his socialist friend to a construction site. Upon arriving he overheard his socialist friend say, “Imagine how much more people would be employed if all these bulldozers were replaced by shovels”. To which the capitalist responded “Imagine they were replaced by teaspoons”.

Anyways this week’s book comes from Satyajit Das entitled “Traders, Guns and Money…”. This book mainly deals with the knowns and unknowns of financial derivatives. What’s that? I’m glad you asked!

Financial derivatives are an instrument (like a contact) which derive their value from another thing. Confused? Me too.

About a year ago I was introduced to a man named Kyle Bass who is a hedge fund owner (Hayman Capital) and a growing figure in the financial world. The topics he talked about in interviews and conferences were fascinating to listen to. So I was encouraged to buy a book on derivatives to understand some of the jargon he and other hedge fund owners were throwing around.

Thats where this books came in. Dat, however, didn’t do the job for me… not because he was a sloppy writer or ignorant, but because I am a sloppy reader and dumb! I’m fairly new to the derivative world and Dat’s writing method didn’t cut it for me. He mainly wrote about his interaction with other people in banking, corporate, etc. in a comical way and didn’t explain what a derivative actually is and go into the specifics (neither was the book intended to do that).

But I did learn many things from the book so its not all that bad, in fact I’m planning on going back to it later after I’ve gained some more knowledge to the derivative world.

For example I learned that derivatives can be both good and bad. Good in that it produces wealth and an abundance of it. Bad when it falls into the wrong hands. Dat gives ample examples of that (Enron, P & G, etc).

Also this got me thinking that derivative trading was one of, if not, the main cause to the housing bubble. The author puts it succinctly when he says “credit was derivatized”.

All in all the book was an okay read even if I didn’t retain all the information given.

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